SevenSenses is like a really fun party. Actually, it’s a series of parties you can go to. It’s like walking from tent to tent at a festival, but you can go wherever you feel like! We just don’t call them tents, we call them zones. And it’s not a festival, it’s the SevenSenses Ecosystem.
The four zones of the Sevensenses Ecosystem
Anyone working within the SevenSenses Ecosystem quickly sees just how versatile our work is. All these forms of learning, researching, implementing and supporting naturally find their place in four zones: SevenSenses Academy, SevenSenses Field, SevenSenses Institute and SevenSenses Foundation.
Zone 1: SevenSenses Academy
Learning & Development
This is where learning takes place: training courses, workshops, guest lectures, keynotes and development activities. The Academy is there for both the SevenSenses Community and our clients, and includes:
- The PAR Practitioners Program: An intensive open-enrolment PAR training course in the Netherlands, followed by a PAR internship (usually also in the Netherlands).
- SevenSenses Challenge: a challenging open-enrolment PAR training course combined with implementation as part of a PAR team abroad.
- In-company training: customized PAR training courses for clients.
- SevenSenses Stories: educational and inspiring stories about PAR from the SevenSenses Community, published as blogs on the website and shared via email.
- The PAR Vitamins: free online sessions every 6 weeks, in which we explore one PAR theme together and learn from each other. Inspired by the Arbeidsvitaminen you can actively participate or simply listen with your breakfast on your lap.
- The SevenSenses YouTube channel, featuring PAR in action and other stories, talks and interviews about PAR, video lectures (recorded in Uganda) and the SevenSenses Tutorials: short learning snacks about PAR.
- Internal learning as well (see ‘Lifelong Learning – Long Live Learning!’) for you as a PAR professional can be seen as part of the Academy.
Zone 2: SevenSenses Field
Implementation & Application
This is where we work together with clients such as municipalities, ministries, companies and NGOs on the implementation of Participatory Action Research, meaning we actually go out into the field. This can involve carrying out a single PAR cycle over several months or multi-year programmes consisting of several PAR cycles. Many customized programmes for clients also include PAR training; this is where the Academy and Field merge. This zone also includes:
- The ‘PAR for Nature Development’ working group: an enthusiastic group of people from within and outside SevenSenses who work together to increase the use of PAR for nature development.
- The Moonshot Brain Breakers: online meetings held every 6 weeks in which SevenSenses colleagues put their heads together to find ways to bring the SevenSenses story further into the world.
Zone 3: SevenSenses Institute
Research & Evidence Building
This is where we deepen, strengthen and further develop the field of Participatory Action Research, so that we can make an even greater impact. We conduct scientific research into, among other things, the PAR methodology and its effective components, as well as the barriers organizations face when implementing PAR.
We publish in scientific journals and on our website, and incorporate these insights into our blogs, SevenSenses Stories, PAR training courses, our YouTube channel and more. In this way, the Institute merges with both the Academy and the Field.
Zone 4: SevenSenses Foundation
Support & Funding
This is the zone that organizes funding and other forms of support when these are not readily available for PAR programmes. This is the case, for example, with the SevenSenses Challenge, where requests often come from communities that do not have a budget. Or when participants are unable to pay for the PAR Practitioners Program. The Foundation also steps in when action plans emerging from PAR have plenty of energy behind them but lack funding. A portion (usually 10%) of our commercial income from Academy & Field goes to the Foundation, and in turn, the Foundation supports initiatives within those two zones.
Four zones, together forming one Ecosystem
These zones are, as you can see, closely interconnected and continuously reinforce one another. Together, they form the flywheel that enables our impact to grow exponentially, allowing more and more people to experience what it is like to co-create a fantastic world. As a SevenSenses colleague, you move freely between these zones — or ‘tents’, in the festival metaphor. You choose your own route, based on where you can learn, grow and contribute in a way that suits you. Wherever you are, you know that your contribution not only strengthens your own part, but the entire ecosystem, bringing all of us not just one, but many steps closer to that fantastic world each time.
The various activities, concepts and programmes within the four zones have emerged gradually as SevenSenses has grown. This is only a fraction of what is possible. SevenSenses therefore invites you to share your ideas for moving closer to the Moonshot faster or more easily, and to start putting them into action.
